Cool sea surface temperatures overrode warming
December 4, 2009
Left side: 1970-2007 trend in annual surface air temperature. Right sid: 2008 annual surface air temperature, shown as a departure from the 1971-2000 climatology.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming. The recent coolness was caused by transitory natural factors that temporarily masked the human-caused signal,” said Judith Perlwitz, lead author of the study and a researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research Environmental Sciences, and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, both in Boulder, Colo. The paper will be published Dec. 8 in Geophysical Research Letters.
[NOTE: We have it here – see link below]
Using computer-generated models as well as observations, the team analyzed causes for climate variations in the recent decades. Special emphasis was given to the reasons for North American coolness in 2008. The research is an exercise in climate attribution, a scientific process for identifying the sources of observed climate and weather patterns. Climate attribution is a vital part of NOAA’s climate services.
“We found that North American coolness resulted from a strong bout of naturally caused cooling in the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures,” said Martin Hoerling, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author. “This illustrates how regional patterns can vary independent of the overall global average. In 2008, global land temperatures were the sixth warmest on record, whereas it was the coldest year in North America since 1996.”
The analysis included historical data and climate model simulations that were conducted in the U.S. and internationally. The science team discerned both natural and human-caused influences for 2008.
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.
The scientists conclude that the North American temperatures are likely to resume increasing again, and do not see the recent coolness as an emerging downward trend.
“Our work shows the importance of the role of natural climate variability in temporarily masking or enhancing human-induced climate change. Through diagnosis, we ensure that natural changes, when occurring, are not misunderstood to mean that climate change is either not happening or is happening more intensely than the expected human influence,” said Arun Kumar, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author.
Authors of A strong bout of natural cooling in 2008 are Judith Perlwitz, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, Colo., and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; Martin Hoerling, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; Jon Eischeid and Taiyi Xu, both of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, Colo., and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; and Arun Kumar, NOAA Climate Prediction Center, Camp Springs, Md.
The work was funded by the NOAA Climate Program Office.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
==================
Link to GRL Paper is here
(Thanks to Leif Svalgaard)
ha-ha-ha-grumupnnmkorgdzzzz (sorry, I swallowed my tongue) That is TOO funny.
Someday they will hop on this train.. http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html
… and when I see the 2009 results I’m likely to pee my pants
“It will get warmer if it doesn’t get colder”. Sounds like a typical weather forecast.
Gee don’t you wish we hadn’t influenced the weather with our CO2 so we could have really frozen our rear ends off in 2008.
“Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.”
Yeah, according to at least two of those emails, when sunspots return, so will the warming.
And Leif, don’t scold me, I’m just noting what I’ve read from some of those scientists at CRU.
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.”
Words fail me. We are back in Stalin’s time when all science papers had to mention how they were inspired by Stalin’s thoughts. Now we have to confess how awful a species we are.
Well of course they don’t think the 2008 cooling is the beginning of a cooling trend — their a priori assumption that man is responsible for global warming cannot accommodate this possibility. Once again, another example showing how this kind of prescriptive thinking is unscientific.
Watt,
Did WW2 increase global CO2 significantly and does that show up in the temp record? The manufacturing effort of the war was huge, not to mention the blowing up and burning of cities and equipment.
We’ve had a HUGE global housing bubble in this decade with a huge manufacturing cycle in China and all over the world, presumably spewing lots of CO2 yet global temps have stayed the same. We’ve also had 2 wars in Iraq and Afganistan and the extra burning of fossil fuels attributed to that, yet temperatures have stayed the same.
Yes, it’s the cool sea surface. Now, make a leap, WHY is the sea cold?
It’s the PDO, stupids…
Wow, my brain hurts from the spectacle of insanity beyond insanity of today’s events.
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming.”
Yeah, the planet is either cooling, staying the same or warming. Dah.
What amazes me is that they think they can find the causes in such a complex system and assign with any accuracy the percentage warming from each of their selected causes of warming or cooling or staying the same.
Not allowed to exhale anymore. You can inhale but no exhaling anymore. No running. No exercise. No mice that roar! Nope, can’t have CO2. Grrr… Arrrgg…
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/12/07/epa-moves-to-cut-off-essential-nutrient-for-plants-and-wants-you-to-stop-breathing
Somewhat off topic but why did the JAXA sea ice extent drop today? More algorithm adjustments or a change in wind moving the ice around. Lost about 100,000 km from yesterday.
Oh yeah, another excellent find.
“The scientists conclude that the North American temperatures are likely to resume increasing again, and do not see the recent coolness as an emerging downward trend.”
See, that is the part that gets me. They always have to reach for the crystal ball and forecast warming no matter what the climate is doing.
5 years ago hey would never have forecast this cooling. So it comes to pass. So they say “oh, no big deal, watch out, though, because warming is right around the corner”.
Now really that is a pretty safe bet. Periods of warming generally follow periods of cooling. And periods of cooling generally follow periods of warming. The way they have spun this is that when things naturally move in the other direction they will be standing there saying “see! Told ya! its WARMING!”. And since they have everyone convinced that ANY warming is a horrible thing, at any given time in the future they have a 50% chance of being in a condition that furthers their agenda because it is generally always cooling or warming.
So the only interesting part is that North America cooled. The rest is blather.
Will they pull Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline?
When there is warming, it’s due to CO2 and human emission of GHGs.
When there is cooling, it’s due to natural factors. What a great logic.
Oh, and NOAA, via NCDC, has cooked the books on the thermometer record via buggering GHCN. It’s in the data:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/ghcn-the-global-analysis/
For example, why would South America be “warmer” in the record?
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/ghcn-south-america-andes-what-andes/
Perhaps taking all the thermometers out of the mountains had something to do with it.
Or the half of the planet that is the Pacific basin?
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/ghcn-pacific-islands-sinking-from-the-top-down/
Yeah, cooked books again.
NOAA / NCDC is as crooked as UEA / CRU in my opinion. It needs investigation.
If anyone knows how to do a FOIA for the records of meetings and emails about the decision to redact the thermometers, it’s a giant “Dig Here!”
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.”
As a resident of one of those big blue blobs, I say bring on the human-induced warming!
What is s/he talking about? That sentence makes no sense at all; unless, of course, s/he is talking agenda science and not, um… natural science, aka reality.
“We found that North American coolness resulted from a strong bout of naturally caused cooling in the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures.”
For sure. So what caused the cooling in sea surface temperatures?
Scientific hypotheses are supposed to fall when they fail to make predictions and another hypothesis comes along that can predict better.
The AGW Hypothesis has failed to predict the cooling trend and now they are looking to explain it after their hypothesis was falsified by Mother Nature.
The Solar Weather Technique gets better results! Sometimes as accurate as 85% a year or so into the future! Now that’s impressive.
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/11/29/when-soothsaying-ahem-predicting-the-future-weather-and-climate-accuracy-matters-and-as-such-the-agw-hypothesis-fails-while-the-solar-weather-technique-succeeds
As it stands the Solar Weather Technique is doing better than AGW!
Furthermore, “Bad explanations are easy to vary while good explanations are hard to vary.” – David Deutsch, a physicist at the University of Oxford.
The fact that the AGW Hypothesis Alarmist crowd keeps having varying explanations indicates that they hypothesis has once again failed as it shows little if any predictive powers beyond soothsaying with dead tree entrails!
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/12/05/bad-explanations-are-easy-to-vary-while-good-explanations-are-hard-to-vary
So when it’s warm it’s CO2, and when it’s cold it’s natural? And they can’t see the stupidity of this?
cool
“When you say model, you’ve said it all.”
Right, “We don’t understand why things haven’t been getting hotter,” and immediately “Oh, it is natural causes.”
I wonder what other “Natural” causes these people don’t understand?
I’m sure it’s a just an amazing coincidence that this ‘convenient’ paper and the EPA CO2 pronouncement occur during the opening day of Copenhagen.
Improbe Neptunum accusat qui iterum naufragium facit.
Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.
I’ve seen predictions from them be wrong before.
The sun, as noted by a post here at WUWT, is getting quieter.
They shouldn’t look for results that come from increased energy from the sun to happen when there is no increase in energy from the sun.
Cool sea surface temperature? In the previous thread, Congressman Ed Markey said (in the CNN video posted by Ron de Haan), “We are reporting this year the warmest ocean temperature in history. The last nine years have been amongst the top ten warmest in the history of the planet.”
His co-author in the Waxman-Markey climate bill said earlier this year that “evaporating” Arctic sea ice would cause a “catastrophic rise in sea level.”
Is it necessary to point out that by all reasonable measures the Medieval Warm Period, most of the Late Holocene prior to about 500 AD, the Eemian Interglacial, and most of the entire Eocene were warmer — much warmer — than present? Does it take a 5th grader to explain to Congress that melting ice on water does not increase the level of the water?
These two members of Congress are the best we can do? To think people listen to and believe these clowns. Perhaps we are doomed.
“The recent coolness was caused by transitory natural factors that temporarily masked the human-caused signal.”
I expect this line will get quite a workout over the coming decades as the climate cools. Then, when it starts to evoke snickers, it will switch to how natural factors are having a greater expected effect than expected and is still masking climate change, giving us a few more years to save the planet. And when more snickers ensue, the cause of the cooling will be pollution itself.
By then, China will be an industrial superpower and the self-righteous will hold up examples of American sacrifice, having self-destructed its economic base and call on China to join in the crusade to save the planet. And the people in China will look at the West in amazement and wonder why they should give up the pleasures of warmth and prosperity.
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.
Of course . . .
My non-computerized observations of flora, fauna and human behavior all indicate that 2009 follows 2008 as ever colder.
It wasn’t likely for the Sun to have spent 2 years sinking ever deeper, either, but it happened. And most predictions missed it.
Global Warming is over.
We have returned to the 70’s cooling period level in short order.
Lay the computer models down, and get back to the business of restoring the historical data that has been computationally corrupted.
The Models have no more value in predictability than did the highwire-act market-bubble models. When they fail, they fall flat on thier face.
“NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.”
Uh huh. Whatever. Methinks NOAA protesteth too much.
“Through diagnosis, we ensure that natural changes, when occurring, are not misunderstood to mean that climate change is either not happening or is happening more intensely than the expected human influence,” said Arun Kumar, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author.”
And my hard-earned tax dollars are paying YOUR salary to deliver this bunk??
“To mean that climate change is either not happening?”
Huh? Wha?? Whoever contested that climate is not changing?????? Nobody in their right mind.
Climate changes. That’s what it does.
THIS type of sophistry folks….funded by the taxpayer…its days are numbered.
Attention bureaucracientists and the the politicians that support them:
Your ill-gotten reign…is about to end.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Is there, really, any unambiguous factual data proving that there is a “human-caused signal” and allowing us to measure its extent exactly?
If not, why there is almost nobody in the scientific community who would protest ideologically driven statements of this kind?
These people, Perlwitz and Kumar, are truly shameless. What they are doing is worse than prostitution.
Why is there no mention of the PDO?? Is there a bias in NASA’s research?
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming…”
Yeah, and my our work shows that there can be warm periods, but that does not mean the end of global cooling.
You may want to look at this site for some historical comparisons. They do a pretty good job of introducing progressively longer time periods. http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553 The site is about nanotechnology but takes up climate in this post.
What we have here are all kinds of maybes that do not amount to any kind of support for the destruction of the worlds economies in order to address the age old problem of what I see as the real goal of the AGWers – the conquering of WEATHER CHANGE. However, rather than being laughed off the stage the AGWers call it Climate Change. Using AGW, which has morphed into WEATHER CHANGE (Climate Change), as the very short timeline basis for economic turmoil is an unforgivable “crime against humanity”.
(I have the UNFCCC show on (CSPAN) as I write this. Gawd! That second girl soloist in the Danish Girls Choir was so bad I had to turn the sound off until the piece was over. The Opening – WHAT A REAL PAGEANT OF CRAP! The movie, the self adulation of the participants, the drapings, the lies. )
“Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.”
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming.”
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.
– OK, how about admitting the NOAA couldn’t see 2008 coming. Where are some specific predictions. How about proof that the models have worked,, instead of just continually adjusting them to predict the past?
(Pachauri is speaking of the ‘sinking of the Maldives’. What a piece of work. I can’t take him any more……….
“We found that North American coolness resulted from a strong bout of naturally caused cooling in the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures,” said Martin Hoerling, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author. “This illustrates how regional patterns can vary independent of the overall global average. In 2008, global land temperatures were the sixth warmest on record, whereas it was the coldest year in North America since 1996.”
After reading this, I still have no idea what caused the cooling. I have two questions. First, what would be considered an *unnaturally* caused cooling of North America? Second, why did the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures decrease in 2008? Enquiring minds want to know.
CO2 CAUSES global warming, EXECPT….., or UNLESS…., or IF…. or, or , or, give me a minute, I’m thinking…….
The science must stand on its own.
In science the burden of proof is on the theory.
The theory must provide the proof.
If the theory makes a prediction, which it must to not simply be a hypothesis, and the prediction is wrong then the theory is discarded.
That is part of the scientific method.
The AGW theory predicts that CO2 causes global warming.
CO2 is higher now then it was in 1998.
Average global temperature has been declining since 1998
The prediction made by the theory is wrong therefore the AGW theory must be discarded.
QED.
It is called the scientific method. It only takes one wrong result to discard a theory.
‘No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.’ Albert Einstein
Please see also:
scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/climategate.html
For a satirical look at the climategate computer programming:
Anthropogenic Global Warming Virus Alert.
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i64103
Well of course the cooling was natural but so was the heating.
The new doublespeak: When it gets cooler, that’s part of ‘warmer’.
Two more questions. Why the repeated reference to global warming and why is it relevant to the findings of the study?
Warm temperatures = Anthropogenic factors. Cool temperatures = Natural factors…
Of course! Silly me! How could I have been so stupid?
/sarcasm
Cheers
Yeah sure and we’re supposed to imagine NOAA has some credibility when their new head, Lubchenco, claims
“CO2 emissions have turned parts of the ocean so acidic that it’s corrosive”.
And created “Osteoporosis of the sea.”
Or
“climate models are robust enough to predict wind patterns 100 years from now”.
Or who after spending 5 years and a $9 million NAS grant failing to find an AGW link to ocean dead zones, simply made up one.
We live preposterous times managed by preposterous people.
So, the natural variablity of Sea Surface Temps cause the recent years of cooling and the exceptionally cool year of 2008 specifically.
The paper doesn’t really get into what causes the variablity of Sea Surface Temps, but does frequently admit a 10 year cooling trend.
They plugged in the SST variablity to the models and the cooling is explained with any doubt an AGW explained.
I wonder how many years of cooling it will take before weather becomes climate?
As a computer simulator this type of ‘proof’ drives me nuts. In the ‘old days’ the math folks came up with formulas to predict the orbit of mars while maintaining that the earth was the center of the universe. Just plug in the right fix to the computer models and what should be common sense proof that the models are not accounting for solar effects or why we warmed after the last little ice age, is explained away.
This is so much like religion driving science. Disenting scientists are in ‘house arrest’.
“the expected human influence” Expected?
That said, how much of recent warming is due to natural causes? Why wait until there is cooling to try and attribute natural variations? What is the expected cooling’s actual value?
This meme that global warming can cause cooling is a bit tiresome. it violates the first law of thermodynamics and it is about time the grown ups stopped the children from playing doctor.
And if it persists for 20 more years? Let say . . . in conjunction the negative PDO? What will they call that?
So the soundbite is:
Cooling can happen for natural reasons but warming is anthropogenic. (Is that too many syllables to be realistic?)
Guess how the “overwhelmed”, underlying, antropogenic warming trend was “showed” in the paper? I am not sure this is science anymore..
The way I read it, just more toeing the old PC line.
I suppose there’s some logic behind these assertions and conclusions but it makes my hair hurt trying to unravel it.
““North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.”
I really hope I am wrong but an assertion like this, after all the other feedback about journal controls over what may be said before publication is accepted, does look rather more like editorial as opposed to scientific comment. Sadly I feel suspicious.
Cooling Attributed to Natural Causes
Well at least they did not attribute it to super natural causes or call it man made global cooling
OK. But what about the rest of the world? isn’t this a graph of world-wide temps? Or does Northern Hemisphere data dominated the rest of the world? (yes, I’m half joking)
I wonder how many years of cooling it will take before weather becomes climate?
The official RC figure would be 30! 🙂
The AGW-hypothesis has now become flexible! So flexible that it can not be disproven by empirical evidence. It just streches to include the new data.
“Using computer-generated models…”
Nuff said…
Oh, I thought those were showing trends in North America’s passion for the Global Warming.
I read these reports in complete bewilderment. We live in a closed system. It cannot generate extra energy internally. It is constantly radiating to space. The only incoming source of energy is from the sun. The system will warm or cool dependant on that energy from the sun.
The Romans went down because of lead in their drinking water. What is it that is causing the current intellectual collapse of so called world leaders?
I see the first draft of this paper, “A strong bout of natural cooling in 2008” by
Judith Perlwitz, Martin Hoerling, Jon Eischeid, Taiyi Xu, and Arun Kumar3 was
Received on 29 September 2009, revised on 4 November 2009 and accepted on 10 November 2009. It was published on 8 December 2009.
That seems to me to be a pretty fast turnaround for a paper. Climategate and Jokenhagen influences?
Anyone catch the CNN special tonight on Campbell Brown? I don’t know how Michael Oppenheimer could keep a straight face.
“Climate attribution is a vital part of NOAA’s climate services.”
So, apparently, is climate “science” spin.
3. “North American ‘‘Cold Event’’ of 2008”
The 2008 NA temperature was noteworthy for its
appreciable departure from the trajectory of warming since
1970 (Figure 1a).
Why is there no mention of PDO or ENSO?
The “Cold Event” in 2008 that they are referring to was actually this:
Oscillation Rules as the Pacific Cools
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-231
A “Cold Event” just sounds so .. anomalous.
These people (with NOAA’s support) are still in denial.
The paper reeks of being strictly a political propaganda piece. If CO2 acts like a blanket holding in heat, then natural variability does not eliminate that heat, It simply redistributes it, If there was truly CO2 induced warming that was just overwhelmed by SST coolness, the proof is not to be found in the models, but revealing where that heat was redistributed to. If the blanket is working, the sum of land and ocean heat content (OHC) should still be rising. But not only did NA land temps decline, OHC also has gone down. They need to buy new CO2 blanket because theirs isn’t working. Or if they were scientists they might reconsider the assumptions of their theories, instead of trying to persuade us with such BS.
Oslo (23:06:30) : Yep, Popper picked it. Once something is unfalsifiable, it isn’t science. This paper shows an unfalsifiable hypothesis in spades.
Revisited The Open Society and Its Enemies by chance today and Popper’s attack on historicism and historically based pseudo-laws…with a tweak we are there with the ‘law’ of manmade CO2 causing warming.
And consider Popper’s fear of historicism being a recipe for tyranny because it enables elites to sacrifice all to the law because of their esoteric knowledge…
The more I read the more I saw the psychological links between Marxist totalitarian thinking (also unfalsifiable) and AGW totalitarian thinking (the cognoscenti must make YOU sacrifice for the sake of the cooling utopia).
Always suspicious of all that “red inside” commentary. But the psych – and the structure of their thinking – is remarkably similar.
BTW, on the psych of the enviro-totalitarian: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703558004574581673107794380.html
Thank you, everyone, for giving me some laughs at the end of this frustrating day.
I’ve been so mad I could strangle a polar bear. To stop him from emitting any more CO2, of course.
That report was really written by Al Gore. LOL
I despair. I really do. The wheels are coming off and yet they insist on feeding us this crap. Once the truth is out and people realise that climate change mitigation means much higher taxes and a reduction of living standards there will be serious unrest and what then. Iranian style dissent control?
Instead of arguing over opinions, just do the math. Over the last 50 years, the 70 ppm increase in CO2 has produced an increase in downward ‘clear sky’ IR flux 0f 1.2 W/m^2. That is what the radiative forcing constants really mean. (Table 1 of Hansen’s 2005 climate forcing’s paper). The IR radiation can barely penetrate 100 micron below the ocean surface. That’s the width of a human hair. All of that flux increase goes into surface evaporation not ocean heating. So 1.2 W/m^2 gives an increase in evaporation rate of ~1.7 cm/yr. That’s 0.34 mm of water increase in evaporation per year for 50 years. According to NOAA, global estimates of ocean evaporation rates show that between 1977 and 2003 the rate has increased from 103 to 114 cm/yr with an uncertainty of ±2.72 cm/yr. This was caused by a 0.1 m./s increase in average wind speed. [L. Yu, J. Climate 20(21) 5376-5390 (2007), ‘Global variations in oceanic evaporation (1958-2005): The role of the changing wind speed’]. The upper limit to CO2 warming induced ocean evaporation is below the measurement uncertainty of the global ocean evaporation rate, and an order of magnitude less than average wind speed induced changes.
So how does a 1 W/m^2 increase in CO2 flux produce a 2/3 C increase in ‘average surface temerature’? Its that hockey stick magic again, buried inside those computer models. Will anyone do an independent validation of these climate models? Its not just the surface temperature record that’s been fixed, its the models as well. When are these guys going to put some real surface energy transfer physics into their climate models?
The long term US temperature just follows the ocean surface temperatures. What have the PDO and AMO been doing recently?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/US_Temperatures_and_Climate_Factors_since_1895.pdf
No CO2 required.
Wayne Delbeke (22:01:21) :
Somewhat off topic but why did the JAXA sea ice extent drop today? More algorithm adjustments or a change in wind moving the ice around. Lost about 100,000 km from yesterday.
They changed the numbers. I heard they now need there to be a higher percentage of ice to open water for it to be counted in the extent figures. It’s a neat way of canceling out the recovery of arctic sea ice if true.
Why is is that a dip in temperature is always attributed to natural causes yet any warming blip is automatically labelled man made? I have yet to see a convincing warmist argument, other than junk science blather and ad hom. attacks, why this is the case.
Are we likely to witness peak AGW BS anytime soon? Probably not. Sigh…
Leif: Thanks for the link to Perlwitz et al (2009). Their Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 illustrate how poorly the models reproduce the observed decadal trends and annual variations. They then twist the logic somehow to, “North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present.”
Att this moment North America is boiling hot LOL Its definitely AGW I know I’m certain
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp1.html
Por favor!
Very amusing little piece. Outcome not surprising, considering the funding source & the intended outcome by virtue of the summary statement regarding attribution.
Somewhat OT, watched a very interesting prog (half of after choir practice) last night on UK Channel 4, called “Man on Earth”, hosted by Tony Robinson of Blackadder fame, (a simpleton character named “Baldrick” in a UK psuedo historic comedy series for u (sorry mi daughter hs ben gvng me txt lesns) colonials). Very interesting historical viewpoint of Man’s ascendancy over the planet, well as far as population goes anyhow. The most interesting thing was, & this coming from one who I understand to be Marxist Socialist leaning (& wealthy by most standards), was the deliberate use of the term “Climate Change” to describe the many changes causing mankind to adapt to the environmental changes taking place over the eons. I am unaware of whether this will be a longish running series or just two progs, next is Monday evening 14th Dec @ 9pm but of course I am expecting the programme to develop (dreadful action) into an eco-rant about modern mankind’s destruction of the planet in due course, I will keep you posted. However, the constant use of the terms Climate Change & Global Warming & Global Cooling, WRT history, over millions of years, & how man adapted to the heat then the cold & back again was wonderful in that context. Graphics were fun, especially depicting an Earth covered in ice north & south but not completely where central Africa remained clear, but showing the land link for the UK & France was good but the sea levels never changed during said graphics, only the white of ice over the land & seas, allowing the viewer to sea the current land patterns in place, with no changes to the silouettes as the sea levels would clearly rise & fall, was bizarre but not uncommon. They also mentioned specific dramatic cooling events, the name of which has completely gone from the grey cells this morning, “Heinrich? event”, readers can help I am sure! These were described in detail as happening without warning & very suddenly, freezing the landscape all around with temp drops of between 7-10°C (curiously referring to Centigrade as opposed to Celcius). No attribution to the cause was offered at the time, (& no mention of these events ever heard of before by yours truly other than the Younger Dryas). A few historically contentious issues regarding the demise of Neandathal man would set the cat amongst the pigeons I am sure which was acknowledged, (I know a few lookalikes so the likelhood of interbreeding cannot be discarded).
Second thought, I have no wish to defame the talented sexagenarian Mr Robinson as to his politcal views (with a young girlfriend like his, I like many a red blooded male would be green (aaaaggghhh) with envy), as UK Channel 4 was the broadcaster of the infamous “Global Warming Swindle”, so I could be wrong & am prepared to admit so here & now.
AtB
But, but, but, but…. I thought Man’s CO2 fossil fuel emissions completely overwhelmed ALL natural variations.
Lets subtract natural effects and first-order forcings from the 150 year old temperature record to see what is happening globally
1. If you subtract the natural decadal fluctuations you are left with an almost linear warming trend.
2. If you subtract natural linear trend that pre-dates the AGW hypothesis then you have an almost flat temperature record.
3. If you subtract first-order forcings associated with the rise in CO2 then you have a cooling trend in the global record.
Here is the good part.
4. Finally if you subtract the GCM’s much larger warming trend from the remainder of the temperature record then you have a rapid cooling trend.
In order to maintain faith in AGW you have to believe that increasing CO2 levels prevented the world from cooling very rapidly over the last 50 years.
How credible is that when you already know that the same models failed to predict the lack of warming over the last decade?
Wayne Delbeke (22:01:21) : tallbloke (00:31:07) :
The http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php site has been having difficulties. Yesterday, I saw their downward hook and now today 8th December at 11-31 GMT, I see the http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm site has the same shape downward hook.
OT: In the “weather is not climate” department …
At 3 AM MST Dec 8 2009 in Lethbridge, Alberta (two hours N of Great Falls, MT) it was:
-39°C with a wind chill of -51°C.
The mean temp in the past 24 hours was -32°C which is 26 degrees below the long-term daily mean. Old record shattered by four degrees.
Okay fine. It’s just weather. Whatever. Ugh! ☺
Todd (21:56:27)
the temp record showed a 40% drop after 1945 (~0.3C). 40% relative to the 100 year old rate that is, and all that implies…
AGW hockey players argued, of course, that it was a glitch in the record keeping because, during the war, the records came mostly from american ships, which measured the temp of the water before pumping it into the various ships’ engine cooling systems, during their tiny little paths across a small part of the oceans for a few years, and after the war it went back to the brits and whatever minuscule part of the ocean they were measuring at the time.
The key thing here is to ask WHY they use 1970 as the starting point for their ‘normality’.
It would seem to any person of scientific critical faculties sufficient to be worthy of possessing influence and authority that there is a double PDO cycle which represents the most obvious ‘unit’ of comparison.
Now no doubt scientists far more knowledgeable than me will be able to argue as to when in history is the comparable position to 2008 in that cyclical pattern.
But I would hesitate to suggest that it is sometime around 1940s?
Having compared a complete double PDO cycle, one is also minded to ask whether anyone has worked out the multicentennial ‘beat’ yet from geological/ice core data and asked where we stand on THAT oscillation from ‘normality’. Clearly that might be dangerous, as we might find us rather SIMILAR to the MWP equivalent??
This arbitrary definition of normality is rather unprofessional, unscientific and deliberately manipulative, in my humble opinion.
You will note at http://www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews how they emphasise in their latest monthly report the lack of ice in Hudson Bay and the Barents sea, whilst failing to highlight the higher than average ice to the NW of Alaska and the NE extremity of Siberia……
Me thinks they doth protest too much…….
Can’t have it both ways can you? CO2 is either warming the earth or it’s natural warming/cooling cycles.
[1] A precipitous drop in North American temperature
in 2008, commingled with a decade-long fall in global
mean temperatures,
[2] Doubts on the science of human-induced climate
change have been cast by recent cooling. Noteworthy has
been a decade-long decline (1998–2007) in globally averaged
temperatures from the record heat of 1998 [Easterling
and Wehner, 2009]
Translation: It began as a steady decline and then the dam burst.
[5] Observational NA temperature analysis is based on a
merger of four data sets: U.K. Hadley Center’s HadCRUT3v
[Brohan et al., 2006], National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Land/Sea Merged Temperatures
[Smith and Reynolds, 2005], National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) [Hansen et al.,
2001] and NOAAs’s National Climate Data Center (NCDC)
Gridded Land Temperatures based on the Global Historical
Climatology Network (GHCN) [Peterson and Vose, 1997].
You mean a merger of 4 doctored/cherry-picked/clubbed data sets.
[8] The 2008 NA temperature was noteworthy for its
appreciable departure from the trajectory of warming since
1970 (Figure 1a).
Yeah, the bottom fell out of it. And it continues, does it not?
[15] There is increasing public and decision maker demand
to explain evolving climate conditions, and assess especially
the role of human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.
The 2008 North American surface temperatures diverged
strongly from the warming trend of recent decades, with the
lowest continental average temperatures since at least 1996.
This same thing happened before, in the early 1880’s, only they didn’t have
C02 to kick around as the scapegoat.
Our appraisal of the natural SST
conditions in the Nin˜o 4 region, with anomalies of about
1.1 K suggests a condition colder than any in the instrumental
record since 1871 (Figure S2 and discussion in the
auxiliary material). We illustrated that North America would
have experienced considerably colder temperatures just due
to the impact of such natural ocean variability alone, and that
the simultaneous presence of anthropogenic warming reduced
the severity of cooling.
Not so fast, bub. Much of the ‘instrumental record’ from 1871 to 1894 is missing.
This is why you have a Black Eye in Public Opinion, and it’s not going away until you stop propping up bad science with excuses and drop the pretense of ‘settled science’.
Somewhat on topic: For those who are following this series of posts, I just finished “More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 3 – East Indian and West Pacific Oceans Can Warm In Response To Both El Nino and La Nina Events”
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-detail-on-multiyear-aftereffects.html
Both the El Nino and La Nina portions of major traditional El Nino events warm the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans, so their SST anomalies appear to rise in steps. Ocean currents then blend these natural increases in SST anomalies for the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans with the other oceans, raising the SST anomalies globally. The resulting increases in global SST anomalies are mistakenly attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
JER0ME (22:09:35) :
So when it’s warm it’s CO2, and when it’s cold it’s natural? And they can’t see the stupidity of this?
Nup — when it’s warm, it’s “manmade forcing,” and when it’s cold, it’s natural.
CO2 is natural, too, unless it’s *manmade* CO2, in which case it’s more poisonous than dioxin-contaminated, plutonium-enhanced ricin.
*koff*
Sorry — should’ve been “…*manmade* CO2…”
%$#! twitchy “submit” thumb.
paullm (22:26:37) :
“What we have here are all kinds of maybes that do not amount to any kind of support for the destruction of the worlds economies in order to address the age old problem of what I see as the real goal of the AGWers – the conquering of WEATHER CHANGE. ”
I suggest that there are two groups of AGWers with 2 different goals: the first and most vociferous are within the green lobby and their goal is to largely eliminate private cars and air travel; the second are the governments and their corporate friends who are using the green concerns to achieve their goal of exerting more control and further impoverish the poor to the advantage of the rich. Neither group really believes that anything other than natural causes are the primary driver of climate change which is why arguing about the science – while it is important to those of us who value truth, decency and integrity – is essentially an exercise in futility.
Here in the UK, we’ve had some highly-paid spokeswoman admitting that jobs will disappear but, hey, not to worry, there’ll be lots of new opportunities in green jobs! I can only hope that the ‘let them eat cake’ philosophy always has the same outcome.
How many times do they get away with the ‘cooling is natural, heating is AGW’ scam?
It’s the same with Antartica! It’s the hole in the Ozone layer that’s causing the sea-ice growth,masking man-made cooling.(Although the Ozone problem was man-made via CFCs).Kind of makes you think it’s a very complicated system,the climate? Not easy to model?
The fact that the sun is a G5 star has masked the fact that it will become a M3 star too.
This NOAA publication is a petty excuse to cover up their their failing warming predictions.
But instead of saying they have been wrong about their theory that CO2 is warming up our planet, they still consist they are right about the “consensus”.
“Our work shows the importance of the role of natural climate variability in temporarily masking or enhancing human-induced climate change. Through diagnosis, we ensure that natural changes, when occurring, are not misunderstood to mean that climate change is either not happening or is happening more intensely than the expected human influence,” said Arun Kumar, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author”.
I suggest you use this paper in the “little house” and use it to wipe your…you know what.
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming. The recent coolness was caused by transitory natural factors that temporarily masked the human-caused signal,” said Judith Perlwitz.
What human-caused signal? You geniuses can decompose the data and identify the human-caused portion?
My question…can we truly resolve the signal from the data? It appears that the noise is much larger than changes in the signal. Any statisticians out there? I often believe this isn’t a climate science battle, but rather a statistical analysis battle.
Statisticians Unite!
But, of course, the strong warming effect in the 1980s and 90s was most certainly NOT caused by these natural effects. Nature only causes cooling, never warming. 😉
.
speaking of the sun, we’re on 15 spotless days in a row with only some small areas of activity to speak of. we may have already seen solar minimum, but SC24 is in no hurry to ramp up the sunspot conveyor!
Yep. Without man-made global warming, we would all be freezing to death right now.
North America Cooling?
But now, the Met Office claims the noughties are the world’s warmest ever!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/met-office-warmest-decade
… are they making it up as they go along?
NOAA are just re-iterating what the Met Office here in London said last year. When it cooled, against their models, they said that global warming was being masked.
They predicted that winter 2008/2009 in the UK would see the continuation of warmer than average winters. It turned out to be colder than the 1971-2000 (adjusted) average.
They had the gall to announce “It would have been even colder if it had not been for global warming”
yet their forecast was ALREADY based on global warming models.
This is the sort of obnoxiousness that seems to be copied from one climatic organisation to another.
So it clearly suggests these people have no clue about the natural workings of the weather and climate. Reassuring indeed…
Anyone else notice the Arctic ice extent curve has headed down at the same time the Arctice temp has taken a drop (and there appears to be a discontinuity in the temp curve)??
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment based on fraudulent pseudo-science. So NOAA doesn’t really know much about climate at all.
NOAA can and should do better than this pitiful bilge it pumps out.
NOAA needs to know and understand what it doesn’t know or understand; that it is primarily changes in the sun and the oceans which drive climate.
NOAA needs to be brave and delve into some actual science, but it probably won’t, which is sad.
Anthony,
The report from Copenhagen this morning was that the past decade was the warmest ever recorded, and that 2009 will be the warmest year ever recorded.
What’s up with that?
How can they say such a thing in public?
They left off the following…”Further research is needed. Send more money.”
Richard111:
The Romans went down because of lead in their drinking water. What is it that is causing the current intellectual collapse of so called world leaders?
Too much Prozac. They are not human any more.
E.M.Smith (22:06:37) :
(I also left this message on his website)
Wow … this is another piece of the puzzle
What is now needed, is a compilation of the various issues found with the temps and measuring devices. Something that an average Media guy could read, and have links to sources.
We have been piecemealing the stuff, and learning as we go, but in the wake of Climategate, we really need a 30,000 foot synopsis of the problem and errors. Maybe one of the professors on the Nature side of the AGW could write it up. Or if we have a group of climate historian types ? …. hmm
Grad School project anyone?
The three points of the paper:
1) We want to make sure that natural variations are not misunderstood to be a part of the climate cycle.
2)That darned cold surface water is pesky stuff, but luckily it is not part of the climate system.
3)The trend we have seen since 1970 will continue until it doesn’t.
“Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.”
I don’t see a quantitative definition of “likely” anywhere in this press release. Does “likely” mean 70%? 99%? 51%? 50.0000001%? What? Nice try, NOAA.
The article at least explains why there were cooler North American temperatures, and as we have been told, this is important to understanding why there has been no warming.
Trenbeth has wondered whether this is due to clouds, extra (unexplained) radiation going into space, deep ocean sequestering, or whatever. We just didn’t know – until now. So here it is, at last:-
“Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from . . .”
A pause here for dramatic effect, in best game show fashion. . .
“Resulted from – a strong natural effect.”
A strong natural effect! Its like a doctor explaining to his patient that his blindness is due to him not being able to see. And then asking for a $50 consultation fee.
Let’s see…The natural cooling overwhelmed (i’m sorry, masked) the man-made warming, but it would have been even cooler without the man-made warming. So we can have natural cooling of a magnitude that can ‘mask’ man-made warming, but we can’t have natural warming of a similar magnitude? Makes sense to me. Not.
“The recent coolness was caused by transitory natural factors that temporarily masked the human-caused signal,”
Run that by me again! So “warmness” is caused by the “unassailable” physics of CO2 in the atmosphere, black body radiation equations and such, but “coolness” is down to “natural factors”.
Sooo.. every now and again (like err … for 3 decades or so at a time) CO2 physics take some much needed time off and Gaia hires someone like H2O to stand in but he always makes a mess of things in the office and CO2 always has to clean the place up when he returns. think I’ve got that now…
Had to laugh at this one yesterday. They were doing so well too, interesting research, probably well worth reading the full paper. Part way through the press release they just can’t keep up the good news any more ….. there must be a catch somewhere, we must be responsible for something.
Listen as the sound of self flagellation grows in the background … crack… good news… crack … it just can’t be true… crack… there must be a catch… crack..crack.. Aspens to destroy biosphere … crack … our fault … crack … arggg, what have we created … crack… drowning in leaves …
OK So, if cooling is due to natural effects, why isn’t warming? …yes, yes, yes, I have heard their specious argument: “It can’t be due to anything else”
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.
Mr. Perlwitz, How many people would you estimate did not die in 2008 because the temperature was not “considerably colder”?
In other words, how many children did not freeze to death, or die due to “considerably colder” conditions during 2008?
How many senior citizens are alive today because 2008 was not “considerably colder”?
Surely there is data out there.
Looks like good old Mother Nature has conspired to “hide the incline” 😉
Naturally, you never see any reference to the fact that the IPCC claimed no natural climate factors could account for the warming so it *had* to be CO2. OTOH, it appears there are natural climate factors that can mask the warming. Hmmmmmm …
oh, I understand. It probably is hard to get funded for that kind of study, much less get the paper through peer review.
This all gets back to Trenberth’s “travesty” quotes. They can’t balance the energy budget and they can’t explain the lack of warming. For most of us this would not be a “travesty”, it would be natural variations. However, if you are an IPCC lead author and responsible for claiming with 95% confidence that you completely understand the energy budget and can predict future warming for 100 years, then I suspect this is a “travesty”.
I believe the “travesty” quotes are the most significant part of ClimateGate. They almost single handedly tell us that the IPCC reports are worthless.
Back on the “MO to let us see some selected data” thread earlier I was looking for something “straight from the horses mouth” (MO announcement wise) and accidentally came across this piece.
More interesting though is relating that story to HMG (UK) stats on “fuel poverty” (page 9) and then comparing it all to the start of the ETS and The European Carbon Exchange (growth in absolute $ terms). I’m sure it is all just coincidence though because as we know correlation is only causation when it suits the agenda.
Sue the bastards.
I’ve been considering all the different options suggested by commentators for dealing with CAGW Hoax, such as “vote them out” and “armed revolution”. But in the end, my delicate sensibilities tell me that SUING THE BASTARDS is probably the best course of action, the most fun, and the most likely to have an effect.
First FOIA the pants off them. Then enjoin their operations. Then bust the gummit perps for malfeasance, obstruction, and orchestrating fraud.
We need show trials, perp walking, jumpsuits, balls and chains, fat cops in shades, TV info babes with shock on their painted faces, the whole nine yards.
Sue the bastards.
I’ve been wondering about something I read where the warmists claim that they’re sure it’s human-induced because the natural processes cancel out. So my question then is, if nature can cancel out the effects of a Pinatubo or Vesuvius or Mount St Helens, why is nature unable to absorb and account for the human element? Our contributions to the mix are quite a bit smaller than a huge volcanic eruption, right?
So their models didn’t predict the cooling, but now that it’s here their models tell them it is ‘natural.’ These NOAA guys aren’t exactly rocket scientists, are they? Well, neither are the climate scientist at NASA, so I guess this isn’t exaclty a shock.
“Our work shows the importance of the role of natural climate variability in temporarily masking or enhancing human-induced climate change. Through diagnosis, we ensure that natural changes, when occurring, are not misunderstood to mean that climate change is either not happening or is happening more intensely than the expected human influence,”
In a very cumbersome way, you just said that natural variability far overpowers any human caused warming.
Your models did not predict the current cooling, ergo, the models inadequately model the real world. End of story. No amount of ifs and buts make them reliable enough to bet the future on.
Please check out “A Cherry Picker’s Guide to Global Temperature Trends”:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/cherry-pickers-guide-to-global.html
It is great!
Bill S (09:52:58) :
“…if nature can cancel out the effects of a Pinatubo or Vesuvius or Mount St Helens, why is nature unable to absorb and account for the human element?”
Your question gets to the heart of the matter. The numbskulls who do not understand feedback systems think the dynamics can be decoupled; that since the natural forces balance and cancel each other at the given equilibrium point, anything else we add is independent of the equilibrium dynamics. I have described the thinking elsewhere as follows:
Wait a minute. I thought warming sea temperatures was why the Arctic and Antarctic ice was melting at an “alarming rate?” Now we’re told that cooler sea temperatures are keeping the sky from falling?
I give these people props for having big brass ones, that’s for sure. It’s a sad day when science is all about the headline and not the information.
NOAA is really setting themselves up to look like a bunch of baffoons, and I think Joe Bastardi will be happy to do it.
I find it very curious that the only place experiencing a cooling trend in the whole wide world is right here in North America, where Anthony has audited the surface stations extensively. The rest of the planet, where weather stations have not been audited extensively, and are increasingly few and far between, show warming, after ‘homogenization adjustments’ using other stations that may be hundreds or thousands of kilometers distant.
The surface stations are the basis for calibration of all the other measurements — satellites, tree rings, ice cores, the works — if they are wrong, the rest of the temperature ‘estimations’ fall with them like dominoes.
Manipulation isn’t a strong enough word for what’s been going on. Purposeful distortion might be a better description.
Incidentally, slightly OT, the mention of the story of Mohammed and the mountain is extremely apropos:
The legend goes that when the founder of Islam was asked to give proofs of his teaching, he ordered Mount Safa to come to him. When the mountain did not comply, Mohammed raised his hands toward heaven and said, ‘God is merciful. Had it obeyed my words, it would have fallen on us to our destruction. I will therefore go to the mountain and thank God that he has had mercy on a stiff-necked generation.’
Perhaps Allah is merciful that he will not allow us to move his CO2 mountains.
Thanks, 3X2
If anyone is inclined to be deferential to “scientists” because of their Ph.D. credential, please allow me to disabuse of that notion. Like the rest of society, the abilities of scientists in their chosen field vary, often widely. I’ve been acquainted with Ph.Ds in the hard sciences (chemistry, physics) that were reduced to computer support because they were not capable in their professional field of study.
My take on the current situation is that Climatology seems to be infested with a large number of people who were taught incessantly in grade school that mankind is ruining the planet, so much so that it is now part of their inherent “common sense”. They just “know” AGW is true, so they find it (or force it) as need be. IMHO, that’s why you see unsupported statements about “**expected** human influence” and “human-caused signal” and “human-induced warming influence” sprinkled throughout a paper that actually underlines their lack of knowledge and common sense (but makes perfect “sense” from their view point).
Add on top of that the rise of “post-normal” (agenda-driven) scientists, heavy-handed manipulation of the Scientific Method, a fawning press, leftist and greed-driven politicians, and you have a near-perfect storm.
I am sorry, but unless they can pin down a specific range for the natural variation, why would anyone believe this? I may have missed it, but what I found very lacking was this:
1. This is the specific natural variability that caused the cooling.
2. This is the proof.
3. These are the calculations that show the specific contribution of this natural variability to the cooling.
I am about to read it again, more slowly, but does anyone else find it odd that ‘natural variability’ is the dump in which all mis/non-understood effects are piled into?
Yet again, I don’t really see how they used the SST anomalies to prove anything. They say that SST anomalies ‘partly explain’ the cooling, then do not explain the lower SST anomalies at all. Yes, there are pretty red and blue pictures and nice distribution pictures, but in the end the blame falls on the ocean without the slightest pretense of explaining why the ocean did it, nor explaining how the colder SSTs developed in the first place. And if the SSTs ‘partly’ explain the cooling, what explains the other part? Weak explanation, I say, but I am open for discussion as to how this explains it all.
!970… 1970… what is it about that year? Maybe it is when the global cooling scare started on account of it had been cooling since the thirties????
Nah. That sample is definitely not cherry picked. I have it on Phil Jones and Gavin Schmidt’s authority.
And another thing, only 4% of models agreed with observations and they are 99% certain?
““North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.””
Well, after all this is the same administration that boasts of “jobs created or saved.”
This it seems to me is a retreat spun as an “advance in retrograde.” So, they’re admitting the lack of warming now? And, better yet, admitting that natural phenomena operate at the same order of magnitude as CO2?
Maybe this is also natural:
“Sun’s Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming
In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun’s radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.”
http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/03_Cosmic/030618.Suns.output.up.html
To me, there is a better correlation between solar sunspot number
http://www.climatedata.info/Forcing/Forcing/sunspots_assets/01-Sunspots_1600_to_present.gif
And their graph for the global temperature
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11639/dn11639-2_808.jpg
than with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
http://envstudies.brown.edu/oldsite/Thesis/2001/rowland/Images/global%20co2-2.jpg
“”” Using computer-generated models as well as observations, the team analyzed causes for climate variations in the recent decades. “””
“”” Using computer models “””
“”” Using computer-generated models . “””
I think I got it; the MODELS themselves are now generated by computer.
Would you let a computer GENERATED model drive your car to work in the morning; while you read the NYT (and Andy’s blog) in the back seat ?
Just remember that it was a computer that tried to land Apollo 11’s Eagle lander on top of a pile of rocks (it would have tipped over and never returned), and Neil Armstrong had to override the computer and manually land the thing off that pile of rocks; pretty much the same way as I will continue to drive my own car thank you.
So we not only have computers faking the data; but they also are inventing their own climate models to operate on that phony data.
Simply wunnerful !
Any two year old child can distinguish a tree (any kind of tree) from a telephone pole (the AT&T tree). Try getting your computer to do that; specially some of those cell phone “trees” we have here in California; they look better than some trees I’ve seen.
Has anyone considered that in fact the current unequivocal global cooling that we have had for the last 9, 12, 15 whatever years might in fact be anthropogenic as in man made.
That time frame is about the same period over which Communist Red China has been placing a new Coal fired electric power plant on line every week. Those coal plants look pretty dirty in the ash sense, based on the photographs I have seen, and all that particulate matter getting blown up into the upper atmosphere, must be nucleating clouds like crazy. In fact I believe that China has exhibited cooling even when the rest of the world might have exhibited warming.
So there you go NOAA why don’t you do a study to see if the current period of global cooling is anthropogenic, or man made; whichever you choose.
Cold SST’s are easily explained. Warm SST’s are easily explained. Thus cold temps on land are easily explained. Thus warm temps on land are easily explained. 5th grade science. Where do I get my Nobel prize?
Here it is in a nutshell. The system self-oscillates. It is also somewhat leaky atmospherically. The Sun beats down on the tropics. If the wind is dead or slow (usually when it is blowing West to East) the water is quite still. When the ocean surface is still, SW infrared heats up the surface. This warm water lazily makes its way around the globe. The warm water also increases water vapor so in some places precip (mostly rain but snow also) increases and in other places warm drought occurs. Eventually the system gets full of heat and causes the wind to pick up and blow quite hard East to West in the tropics. This peels back the warmed water (regardless of the Sun trying to continue to warm it) and allows cold water to mix up to the surface. The mixed colder water works its way around the globe rather quickly, lowering temps in some areas and producing snow, while causing cold drought in other areas. Since the air is colder, water vapor decreases and dries the land out which blows dust out to the ocean. This dust fertilizes the ocean and causes a resurgence in fisheries. Eventually enough energy leaks out into space and things calm down again, letting the Sun warm the lazy surface once again. The oscillation probably has a long one as well as short ones. The steady Sun has about the same amount of influence as CO2 does. Its the leaky Earth and its spin that creates the oscillation.
2009 is the year when the scariest 10 words in the English language went from…
I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you.
to….
I’m a Climate Scientist and I’m here to help you.
Pamela Gray (18:59:27) :
While I appreciate that, I was aware of that before hand. It just seemed to be somewhat of a lazy offhand explanation, as though cooling were something to just blame on the ocean, whereas warming is clearly and unequivocally the human contribution to atmospheric CO2. There may also be mixing from biological life as well, just to add on, but what I was looking for was more along the lines of an explanation that had a more solid attribution.
CO2 increases can be calculated, but to just say “The cooling was because of SSTs” without actually showing any kind of attribution, say a figure like “0.5K was from SSTs” makes me feel that it is not as well understood as the title of the paper would lead me to believe.
Um…
If natural climate variability (I take it they’re referring to the cold PDO/La Nina signal) can cause a trend to flip by 1-2 C in Canada in a single year…couldn’t natural variability also cause the warming?
Sorry Pamela, I mean the paper when I say it seems lazy and offhanded.
This NOAA paper says human activity is the dominant cause of global warming … except when it’s not. And even when GHG forcing steadily increases, the dominant cause of global warming can still be dominated by other natural forces. But natural forces strong enough to dominate the dominant cause of global warming could not be the cause of the warming.
All of which illustrates Trenberth’s Travesty.
We are currently in our long term weather like in the fall season is in our typical year , If the leaves are turning their color and there is a nip in the air and birds are gathering in flocks you can bet that winter is not far of f. Any one who cannot read the longer term planetary signs that a more extended period of cooler weather is ahead is blind to the natural cycles of this planet. Yes warming will resume again but more probably in 2-3 decades.
Ocean SST’s are declining
The ocean heat content rise has leveled off and is dropping
AMO has peaked and is likely to go again negative or cool by January 2010 for an extended cool period now [typically 20 -35 years but it can fluctuate considerably
WINTER NAO is headed for more negative periods like the 1960’s to 1980’s where 17 out 30 winters had negative NAO. In the 1060’s, 8 out of 10 winters had a negative NAO,
PDO is heading for 30 year cool cycle and will go negative by early 2010
A La Nina is possible in 2010 and more frequently during the next few decades
Lunar- solar tidal forcing clustering is predicted to grow as in past cool periods [more mixing of ocean surface levels due to more significant tidal forcing]
Solar minimum continues and next 2 cycles are likely to be low in terms of sunspots
Solar wind is at a 50 year low level
So, cooling can come from natural causes, yet warming only comes from human activity? I fear I have just suffered a divide by zero error in my organic computer. Now I have a headache, and it’s man-made!
I can’t believe NOAA put out a graphic that has “Degrees Kelvin” on it. Doesn’t every scientist know that you don’t put “degrees” in front of kelvin? Isn’t that taught in high school?
You need think about it. Despite the emails, the overwhelming evidence showing global warming is happening hasn’t changed.
“The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus . . . that tells us the Earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity,” Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a House committee. She said that the e-mails don’t cover data from NOAA and NASA, whose independent climate records show dramatic warming.
[REPLY – That’s adjusted data. NOAA and NASA apply strong warming adjustments to the raw data. Besides, even if CRU, NOAA, etc., are right (which I do not concede), +0.7C per century is no threat, whatever. But, yes, we all need to think about it. ~ Evan]